Selective Visibility
by authenticaussie
Summary: In short, it had to be the most awful idea he'd ever heard her try and con him into, and at one point she'd attempted to convince him to drive across America and back for a shoe sale. They lived in Europe.


_Selective Visibility: The ability to see what is occurring on stage. Any lighting design will be ineffective if the viewers cannot see the characters, unless this is the explicit intent._

* * *

Zoro got roped into a great many things because of Nami – there was that time a few years ago during Valentine's that he'd been roped into finding her a date, as one asshole kept refusing to take 'no' for an answer (though that _had _ended in a barely-salvageable disaster, broken hearts only saved thanks to Robin's level-headed thinking).

There was that one time she'd forced him to climb onto the roof _just _to win a bet proving that someone could actually climb to the school roof, (he was suspended for that stunt, until Nami proved that there wasn't _technically _a rule forbidding it) and another time when she'd managed to convince (_blackmail, _more like, the damned money-loving witch) him to clear out the wasp nest on her apartment balcony, in place of Nokijo or herself doing it.

But this? This took the cake on 'stupid things Nami wants me to do.' This took the cake, made the worst, most dramatic spectacle at someone's wedding by announcing everyone was going to die of horribly disfiguring diseases, and then _ran for the hills_singing 90's cartoon theme songs.

In short, it had to be the most _awful _idea he'd ever heard her try and con him into, and at one point she'd attempted to convince him to drive across America and back for a _shoe sale_.

They lived in Europe.

He supposed that a part of it had been his half-sister's fault. Kuina had convinced him to help out first, as a favour – but if he was going to blame Kuina than he also had himself to blame, for as he tried to wriggle out of help, he'd seen Luffy dart towards them, the widest grin on his face.

Luffy'd stopped, excitement practically humming off him as he tried to stay still, and the cheery chirp had Zoro completely sold before Luffy had even finished speaking. "Oh hey Zoro! Are you helping out with the musical too? That's so cool! We get to still hang out!"

Zoro's arguments after that had collapsed like a particularly pathetic house of cards, and he was ninety percent sure that Kuina had planned that stunt with Nami, judging by the high-five the two girls shared after he'd snapped back to his senses and realised that he was blankly nodding along to whatever his sister was saying.

_Still- _none of _this_ was meant to happen! Zoro was meant to be their muscle man. Their swordfight choreographer, along with Kuina (and God did they need it – Luffy had almost stabbed four people alone, and that was when they'd just been blocking instead of using rapiers).

He was meant to hang around backstage, moving boxes and doing nothing but doze during the hours of practice, where Luffy excitedly tried to jump off everything, a way-to hyperactive Aladdin, and Usopp mangled his lines as Jafar, embellishing them beyond reasonable sense and earning Nami's wrath. He was meant to help Kuina memorise her lines, mess up Sanji's carefully organised prop list, and quietly bow at the end of the performance, when everything was over and done with and Nami had gotten her stupid award and prize money.

He was _not _meant to have three girls tag-team him into playing their goddamn princess!

"Zoro, _pleeeease?_" Kuina was currently whining at him, balancing haphazardly on her crutches as she tried to clasp her hands in front of her, and Zoro firmly crossed his arms, refusing to be swayed.

"I'm _not _doing it," he grumbled, "I'm _not _playing a girl! The only outfit you have is a _dress _and I doubt you could whip up another outfit in a _day_."

"Making an outfit is slightly easier than trying to find someone to memorise lines and choreography," Nami snapped, her own arms crossed and glare sharp. "We _need _a Jasmine! She's the most important character!"

"Get someone else to do it then!" he shot back, "I _can't._"

"I will _blackmail _you into it, I swear to god I will-" Nami growled, her mouth opening to give more threats, but Robin rested a gentle hand on her shoulder and gave a placating smile.

"Zoro," Robin started, and his stomach dropped in anxious anticipation because while Nami usually forced him to do things, Robin had the terrifying power of making him think that whatever she was suggesting was a good idea. "You _do _realise that should you agree, there are a few scenes with non-too-subtle romantic subtexts that I highly doubt we could change, considering their importance to our plot?"

Zoro's mouth fell open as he tried to find the words to refute her, but Nami's broad, evil grin and her words interrupted him. "There's kissing. Two lots of it. And romantic duets."

"W-why would I want to sing a duet with _Luffy?" _Zoro shot back, internally cursing the shocked stutter at the start of his sentence and trying to focus on the _least _distracting thing about Nami's attempt at 'convincing'. "Why would I even want to _kiss _him? That's _stupid_!"

Kuina gave one of her long suffering sighs, the ones that she only used when she thought he was being particularly thick-skulled, and her features twisted into her familiar, 'I'm going to strangle you stop being so _stupid_' look. "_Because,_" she growled out, wobbling slightly on her crutches as she broadly indicated with one hand, "you light up like a- like a- I don't know, a goddamn _Christmas_ _tree_ every time he comes into the room!"

"A puppy would be more apt," Robin remarked, and Nami nodded along thoughtfully. "Though I doubt you need to worry much, Zoro. He's never noticed."

Nami snorted derisively, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. "If he ever did I'm pretty sure the apocalypse would occur."

"Luffy's not exactly the most insightful of folk, Zoro," Robin said, as though that was meant to assuage all his rapidly growing worries and the burning feeling that was currently directing all of his blood to his ears.

"I'm _not _being your Jasmine," Zoro mumbled, trying to resist the urge to merely escape the three girls' company entirely, and only barely succeeding. As it was, he could feel his skin prickle uncomfortably, and wished that they would just _stop _casually discussing-

What they were currently discussing.

"Zoro," Nami started, her tone now the half-plead that she almost never used, and he closed his eyes, giving a low groan in the back of his throat. He could practically see her grin bloom on her cheeks at his unwilling agreement, and he caught the sound of Robin and Kuina's high-five beneath Nami's joyful thanks. "You won't regret this, Zoro!"

"I already do," Zoro huffed grouchily, as Robin and Nami's hands clasped themselves around his wrists and he was dragged after the two of them, Kuina swiftly hobbling behind.

* * *

_Well_ , he mused to himself as Kuina stubbornly ran through lines with him for the last time, and Robin poked a few pins in the dark blue fabric of what had previously been his sister's dress for the play, _it could look worse, I guess._

Robin and a younger student from the Home Ec. class known as Chopper had volunteered to fix up the costumes for the play, whipping them up on Nami's extraordinarily cheap budget. Surprisingly enough, Chopper had proved more than adequate, and probably should have been fixing Zoro's outfit instead of Robin. However, he was in the city, taking a two week-long internship at the hospital, and he'd likely only just manage to get back in time for his first scene. While they had organised the play around that, taking into account how early the costumes would have been had to have finished, they _hadn't _taken into account Kuina falling down the stairs and breaking her leg, and the quick change-over of Kuina's role to Zoro.

They'd manage to quickly schedule another rehearsal before the actual performance, and though the full run through went almost perfectly, Kuina had warned him about the stark difference between a performance and a practice.

He suspected that it was her way of challenging him, to make sure that he didn't freeze up or get a sudden bout of nerves before the performance, but all it did was make sickening butterflies begin to flutter in his stomach, only growing larger in number as the muffled chatter of the audience filing into their seats grew and the clock slowly counted down towards when their first – and most important – performance began.

The hustle and bustle of people pushing around the small backstage area and the heady, choking smell of hairspray invaded his senses, making him cough and wave his hand in front of his face to try and clear the smell. Robin shot him a sharp glare, mouth full of spiky-looking pins that looked potentially deadly. He held still again, and Nami darted up, looking almost as jittery as Luffy usually was, hands fluttering to straighten out the creases in his costume, smooth out a missed line on his heavy makeup, carefully position his hairspray coated hair to a better position.

"Oy," he said, gaze level and stern, and her grabbed her by the wrists to force her to stop moving so anxiously. "Calm down. We'll do fine, and you'll get the award money. You're a good director, and they're all good actors."

He could see her take a deep breath, shoulders moving subtly as she tried to get rid of the tension that made her buzz, and he released her, giving a short nod that she returned. "Don't touch your hair." She ordered, expression stern.

"Don't doubt us," Zoro said back, and then turned his attention back to standing still for Robin to continue finalising the last few stitches on his outfit. Though their cast was only small, the energy practically hummed in the air like an electric charge. Even he could feel the thrill of anticipation rocketing around his body, and were he less focused on Robin's alterations, he doubted he'd be able to sit still.

Usopp was in the corner with Kaya, leg bouncing distractedly as the blonde finished carefully putting on the last of his make-up, streaking dark lines around his eyes (he pretended not to see the subtle hand squeeze that Kaya gave Nami as bent to inspect her work, nor the gentle graze of Nami and Usopp's knuckles when she passed by, satisfied).

Franky, their Iago, was barely seen out in the corridor, his patched-together sound and lighting board held between his large hands as he ran through the last checks, and Sanji hovered around him, microphones attached to his belt as the two of them carefully synchronised them to the sound system. Brook was outside the curtains, the faint strains of a jaunty melody to appease the audience as they waited for the play to start, and Vivi (who played Abu,) and her father, (who'd eagerly agreed to play the Sultan,) were straightening up the scattered shoes and strewn costumes that they needed for later scenes.

Chopper was Raja, Jasmine's (his, technically) tiger, and while he normally didn't begrudge the kid for his young age, when he'd first realised the amount of work he'd have to cram into less than a day he cursed the kid and his inability to switch roles from Raja to Jasmine. Still, he supposed Chopper didn't know the choreography as well as he did, having helped Nami come up with most of it, and their tiger wouldn't have been able to memorise Jasmine's lines on top of his own.

"Five minutes!" Nami called, as Zoro finally spotted the person he'd been scanning the bustle for – Luffy. He was perched crossed legged by the door, likely watching the bare glimpse of the black stage curtains that currently hid most of the light backstage, and for once Zoro saw him still. Only his tapping finger belied the restless energy ready to burst out of his friend.

"Done," Robin said shortly, muffled by the pins in her mouth that she carefully removed and put back into the sowing box by her foot, "Don't rip it."

Zoro nodded his agreement, stepping off the box she'd had him stand on and carefully making his way over to Luffy, intent on talking to him about the duets and the last scene in the play – the one they hadn't managed to practice before it had been time to secret themselves backstage.

But Nami was darting in front of him, attaching one of Sanji's microphones to his ear and stringing it down to his mouth, making sure the wires were tucked out of the way. "Out," she ordered, pushing him in the wings and then onto stage, and his moment to talk to Luffy was gone.

The darkness was disorientating, the boxes that marked their set only slightly blacker square patches, and Zoro fumbled forwards, trying to avoid running into anything and still get into his place on time for the opening scene.

"You'll do fine!" Luffy whispered to him quietly, words barely audible as he breezed past Zoro in the dark on silent feet, and Zoro almost jumped out of his skin at the comforting brush of Luffy's knuckles against his shoulder.

Though the thought of swearing out of surprise seemed utterly tempting, the young children in the audience and the prospect of Nami's absolutely livid revenge held his tongue, and he just managed to find his place in the dark, bumping into the box he was meant to be standing on and biting his tongue to stop the yelp of pain.

His heart felt like it was going to beat right out of his chest, loud enough for him to hear it in his ears, and he only had a brief moment to try and ease his racing mind before the lights flicked on, startlingly bright and deceptively hot. His lines fell from his tongue like they'd been there the whole time, every movement flawless as they went through each song and every dance, and the time passed in what felt like the span of seconds. Their only mishap was in the first scene that Chopper was meant to come in, but had only just managed to finish the last of his makeup, sprinting out in a panic but covering up the mistake beautifully.

And then it was _that _scene.

The guaranteed 'aw' moment of any Disney movie, the cliché happy ending, the dramatic swell in the music – Zoro's heart wouldn't stop attempting to find a way out of his chest, leaping into his throat and then sinking right down into his shoes as he went through the moves of his swordfight with Usopp on instinct, disarming 'Jafar' and saving 'Aladdin'.

He felt as though the lights were heating him from the inside, a flush running through him and sweat clinging to his temples under the heavy plastering of stage makeup, and his words were played on autopilot, subconscious saying them even when he had no idea what was going on as nerves tore up his insides.

And then Luffy was close to him, a situation normal and one he'd gotten used to, but the serious and determined look in his friend's eyes was something he'd never seen before outside of an insult fuelled fight. He knew that though his thick swallow was probably visible to anyone in the front row, the nervous clench to his jaw was only visible to one person in the auditorium – Luffy.

Luffy, who was leaning forwards and holding his hands and the lights dimmed til only their silhouettes were showing, but then they were _actually kissing _and holy shit that wasn't meant to happen. That wasn't meant to happen at all!

Nami and Robin and Kuina had tricked him and lied when they'd first conned him into playing Jasmine, had failed to mention that the 'kiss' they'd attempted to bribe him with would only be a stage kiss, disguised by the rosy glow of the heart-shaped fan in front of their faces, and now, now-!

The thunderous applause broke his panicked thoughts, the lights having gone black while he'd been distracted, and the rest of their crew filed out, linking hands as Franky turned the lights back on and they bowed, to wolf whistles and cheers that ignited the feeling of triumphant success in Zoro, and simultaneously flew over his head.

Giving another bow, sweaty hand still clasped in Luffy's, he tried to swallow back the strange churning in his stomach so that he could focus – they had to leave stage, so that Nami could finish giving speeches. The comforting dark and hush of side stage was a welcome relief to his buzzing mind, but the quiet and exuberant chatter that filled it within seconds left him with little reprieve.

Luffy still hadn't let go of his hand.

Usopp's voice should have been the loudest of them all, what with how excitedly he was gesturing about how close Chopper had come to missing his scene, but the only words he could hear were the ones from Luffy, by his side.

"That was so great!" he was saying excitedly, cheeks flushed with the success of their performance and the still audible clapping that filled the auditorium as Nami finished thanking their band and backstage crew.

Zoro's tongue failed him, practically tying itself in knots as he tried to think of a semi-decent reply that wasn't something along the lines of, _holy shit why did you just kiss me?_

"Zoro?" Luffy asked worriedly, stopping in the doorway as the rest of their cast slid into the costume room and forcing Zoro to stop along with him. "Are you okay?"

He could feel his cheeks involuntarily heating as he remembered the soft press of lips against his own, and it took half his concentration not to graze his fingertips against his lips, or even to stare at Luffy's forcing his eyes to snap back to his friend's worried gaze.

_You kissed me, _was what he wanted to say, or perhaps something more along the lines of, _why on Earth did you kiss me? _but the sickening twist of hope and horror that filled his stomach made his words dry up and his heart keep beating like they were still out on stage. "You-" he started to say, but couldn't find any words to continue.

Luffy cocked his head to the side quizzically, brow furrowing in confusion, and he opened his mouth as though to speak before closing it again, eyes flicking to the side in what could almost be constituted as embarrassment or-

"Sorry," Luffy mumbled, the word sounding tight and almost choked. "I-"

Zoro opened his mouth to try and fix Luffy's worries, but once again his words didn't come and he was left feebly grasping Luffy's shoulders, trying to figure out a way to explain to Luffy that there was nothing he'd like more than to continue their kiss from on stage in a more private (and possibly, more romantic) spot.

He'd always spoken better in actions than words, though.

Ducking his head, just slightly, he closed his eyes and prayed for the best.

The kiss wasn't particularly forceful; he didn't want it to feel like he was demanding anything, trying to take something that hadn't been offered, and for a moment he felt Luffy freeze beneath his hands. The spike of anxiety that rose within him almost made him pull away before he felt warm hands wrap around his wrist, and calloused fingers press into his forearm to pull him closer.

There was a smile against his lips, a breath of laughter he could feel, and then he could hear it, too. The cheery sound as Luffy pulled back and rested his forehead against Zoro's, relieved and breathy and almost sounding on the edge of thankful tears.

"I-," Luffy started to say, when his laughter had finally calmed, and the words were slow, like he was deciding whether to say them or not, "really like you, Zoro."

His heart felt like it skipped a beat in his chest, a jump that made it feel like it'd stopped, and now it was Zoro's turn to give a short laugh, the joy he could feel bubbling within him unable to be contained. "Me too," he mumbled, and saw from the corner of his eye Luffy's bright grin.

Zoro decided he wouldn't mind doing anymore performances, if they ended in smiles like that.

* * *

**AN: Nari once again proving that she is the sappy ending _queen._**

**Happy Valentine's Nieroya, you sweetheart! (I see you lurking in the background of people's blogs, NEZ HAS TOLD ME OF THE DETECTIVE STORIES TO FIND YOU.) You have such a cute blog, and you're a lovely part of the OP fandom! Thank you for being around! v/u\v I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's~! (Also I know the play is probably really obviously but you guys should totes guess. :3)**


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